Category: Science-Fiction

Hooked Three Times Over

Like a flashback to childhood vacations! I was away on a trip recently, and I read a lot, just like the old days when no holiday was complete without a stack of at least ten books. This time around I had some – gasp! – mainstream books along, […]

“A Book’s Natural Fate”

So you’ve written a book that fits the current vogue perfectly – let’s say it’s a grimy cyberpunk novel in the mid-1980s – does that mean you’ve guaranteed long-lasting fame for yourself? Probably not. But don’t worry, a lot of your compatriots are suffering the same fate. Oh, […]

An Engineer and a Dreamer

Sad news: Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer and inventor/scientist, died recently – at the age of 90, he had a full life, but it’s still a great loss. To mark his passing, I picked up my favourite of his books, Childhood’s End, and gave it a re-read. […]

Young Man’s Burden

It’s one of the most successful fantasy series of all time, and the author died while writing the twelfth and final volume. What to do? The show must go on, but who would want to take time out from their own work to finish the damn thing? A […]

Spoilerific

I’m the person who hates spoilers, mainly because they wreck a book or movie for me. I’m a stickler for experiencing something in the way that the creator intended (whether this is a smart or helpful habit is quite another question). In the case of, say, a TV […]

Smooth, Smoother, Smoothest

I get sucked in very easily by books that are smooth on the surface. If a book has glossy enough writing and a well-paced storyline, then I’m almost always a sucker for it. But when a book also has something intriguing going on underneath the surface, then I […]